African American Stereotypes

Introduction

Daniel: African Americans and stereotypes. Nowadays lots of races are stereotyped, but African Americans are one of the most frequent racial groups being stereotyped against. Stereotypes about African Americans and their culture have evolved in society particularly after slavery. They were presented as dangerous and violent and portrayed blacks menacing, untidy, rebellious, disrespectful, buffoonish, sexual, immoral, hopeless, untrained, uneducated, and noisy.

Johan: One of the problems today that is occurring is racism in the media. The media gives negative views on the lifestyle of African Americans. These stereotypes that the media uses today of African Americans impairs the realistic image of them to the audiences. It seems
that the modern day media has helped to shape the way that African Americans are being represented.

African American History

Daniel: Since the development of film in America, African Americans have been portrayed in some of the most degrading fashions conceivable to the mind. African Americans have been mocked by offensive images and characteristics in forms of racial stereotypes.

Johan: Jim Crow a character was created to stereotype African Americans in comical skits in the 19th Century, performed by white performers whom would blacken their faces and wear black wigs all to entertain society.
Thomas Rice was a white performer who popularized the Jim Crow character, his comedy routine was an old crippled black man dressed in rags, which he saw dancing on the street. He performed the same dance the old man had been dancing and got a great response from the white western world.

Daniel: These other stereotypes in comical skits representing African Americans of ‘Water Melon Eating’, ‘Laziness’ and ‘inferior to whites’ also flourished. The black caricature, Jim Crow became the image of a black man to the white community as some people had not even come close to a African American. This was most influential of the image of blacks in the Western history that has shaped their representation in society today.

Johan: Portraying the blacks being inferior further helped white people establishing more of a racial segregation, the more that the blacks were represented as different, the more the white society became more secure by the thought of the African Americans permanently different and
separated.

Minstrel Show

Daniel: A form of entertainment developed in the 19th Century consisting of comical skits, dancing or music performed by White performers in theatrical make up to represent themselves as a black person a they blacken their skin and exaggerate on the size of their lips and ragged clothes were worn to complete the transformation. It was founded upon racial stereotype of an African American.

Johan: The stereotypes embodied in the characteristics of an African American, which played a significant role in cementing racist attitudes and perceptions worldwide.

Stereotypes

Daniel: All these stereotypes are evident in media. Such as in Films, Tv shows, Newspapers and magazines. Watching the news should make you more informed, but it also may be making you more likely to stereotype, blacks are often overrepresented as perpetrators, whites are overrepresented as victims, and black-on-white crime is overrepresented relative to crime within racial groups. All of these things are inconsistent with what’s really happening out there

South Park

Johan: South Park, since it was created in 1997, has provided consistent controversy due to its racist, sexist, and ethnic jokes. Plotted around a group of elementary school kids in their small Colorado town. But the creator of the successful TV comedy use stereotypes in a way to bring in more people to watch their show.
South Park addresses another concept of a character in the show being called ‘Token Black’.

Daniel: Token in modern society being a black guy put in a movie in order to please the black community and give of the impression of racial acceptance. Or in South park ‘The token black guy’ is the one black guy that hangs out with white people, typically depicted in high school situations.

Johan: The ‘token black guy’ is usually overlooked and an unimportant character. In South Park the character ‘Token Black’ blatantly satirizes this stereotype. Even though the show jokes about the stereotype being unrealistic, giving ‘token’ anti-stereotypical characteristics. In reality this can be compared to racial segregation of white people having more of a privilege then African Americans but with token being the one with more of a privilege.

Daniel:Being the only black kid at South Park Elementary ‘Token Black’ is taken the role to be ‘the token black guy in the show. Then there is the racial stereotypical assumption of being dumb and lazy token is actually the opposite, being a very good student and comes from a wealthy family. ‘Token’ does not enjoy being the ‘Token Black Guy’ as he is constantly being verbally abused.

Clip Of Token

Johan: The other character, Cartman believes that token is both able to play and own a bass guitar intuitively.
To tokens surprise he was able to play the bass without even picking up the bass before. This is as cartman says is due to the inheritance of his ethnicity. He was also annoyed by cartman's constant stereotyping.

Conclusion

The media is a powerful resource, and provides people with information about the world around us, and the way people are portrayed in the media can affect the way the world views them. As such, It is important to we discover how the media,and in specific television affects African Americans in society so that current and future members of the media landscape can help influence media for the better, and understand how the representations that are put on their stations affects African Americans,as well other races views of them.

Family Guy

Daniel: Family guy is an animated tv series that appeals to a large audience, mainly 25-40year olds. The show created by Seth Mc Farlane and written by mike henry and alex borstein first aired january 32st 1999. The show is a comedic show that is self described as a “Sick Twisted and politically incorrect” animated
series.

Johan: Like south park the show uses stereotypes and re enactments of scenes to add comedic value to the show. These jokes are commonly centered around racial stereotypes like the example here.

Clip Of Cleveland

Daniel: So what did we see in the video?
In the clip we a perfect representation of the discrimination that african americans face on a daily basis. This example fits in perfectly with the current events that have been happening in america with the shooting of unarmed black citizens.
Whilst the show only intends for this to be a joke, it showcases a significant issue in today's society.

Johan: When peter enters the van, the machine calmly handcuffs him and begins to read him his rights, but when Cleveland Brown,the only significant black character in the series enters the van, the machine immediately identifies him as a minority and begins to club him to the floor whilst planting a firearm and claiming that he is armed.

This clip highlights the way that african americans are portrayed in the media, the perception that they are all criminals, this also shows the injustice that they face and links to the unfair treatment that they face and the branding by the American police force